<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Given the Choice by notyouranswer (gorgeouschaos)</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22904599">Given the Choice</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgeouschaos/pseuds/notyouranswer'>notyouranswer (gorgeouschaos)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Defined by Echo [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Character Study, Fate &amp; Destiny, Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 13:34:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>531</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22904599</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgeouschaos/pseuds/notyouranswer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jon wonders, sometimes, if he’s ever had a choice about any of this. Usually, he decides he didn’t.<br/>(For someone who can get anyone to tell the truth, he’s an excellent liar.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Defined by Echo [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1646350</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>71</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Given the Choice</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>"Given the choice I’d never choose this damned pain and suffering for myself but somehow it finds me.”<br/>--Charles Bukowski<br/>No idea if this is canon compliant-- I’m only on episode 91. But hey, I had fun with it.<br/>Hope you like it, and I live for feedback :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jon wonders, sometimes, if he’s ever had a choice about any of this. Usually, he decides he didn’t.</p>
<p>(For someone who can get anyone to tell the truth, he’s an excellent liar.)</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Some of Jon’s earliest memories are of reading. Most of them, in fact. He’s always been precocious-- or, as many of his classmates called him, a show-off. </p>
<p>He’d never seen the harm in knowing things, not until the Institute. He’d taken joy in knowing things. </p>
<p>Something clicks into place. </p>
<p>It sounds like the click of <em>play </em>being pressed on a tape recorder.</p>
<p>(Or perhaps the clicking of a spider’s mandibles.)</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em> A Guest for Mr. Spider </em>falls into Jon’s grasp. </p>
<p>(He does not wonder why for a long time.)</p>
<p>He survives. </p>
<p>And he remembers. </p>
<p>
  <em> Click. </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Tell me the truth!” Jon shouts at his grandmother, too caught up in his anger to care about the hurt on her face, and she does. </p>
<p>They don’t speak to each other for three days afterward.</p>
<p>Jon still believes it was worth it. </p>
<p>The truth always is.</p>
<p>
  <em> Click.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jon gets hit more times than he can count. They hit him for being scrawny, for being smarter than them, for being an arrogant pain in the ass. </p>
<p>He learns how to hit back early on. </p>
<p>Jon’s scrawny, but he’s vicious. He splits his knuckles more times than he can count, and he sprains his wrist once when his fist hits a bully at an awkward angle, but he gets better fast. </p>
<p>His grandmother pinches her lips into a tight line and doesn’t comment when he comes home with bruises and split lips. </p>
<p>(Jon wonders, but does not ask, if his mother had been the same way. If his father had.</p>
<p><em> Tell the truth </em> rises to his lips on more than one occasion, but he doesn’t let the words out.)</p>
<p>He loses more fights than he wins, of course-- he never stops being scrawny, even if he does get taller-- but he develops a reputation for being a bad target. </p>
<p>No one wants to pick a fight with someone who isn’t afraid of anything anymore. Someone whose eyes light up just a little too much at the sight of blood.</p>
<p><em> Click</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“And why do you want to work here, Mr. Sims?” Elias Bouchard asks. His stare makes Jon want to shift in his seat. </p>
<p>Jon refuses to allow himself the weakness, though, so he holds Elias’ gaze. </p>
<p>The look in the other man’s eyes is something Jon has seen a thousand times in his own reflection.</p>
<p>“Because I need to know everything I can,” Jon says, and Elias smiles in approval.</p>
<p><em> Click</em>.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>He heads home in a daze after Elias gives him his job back.</p>
<p>It doesn’t seem like he has a choice about any of this. Elias has made the decision that Jon is going to stay Head Archivist, and some… some <em>god </em>has decided that Jon is going to do just that. </p>
<p>Some god who Jon has no choice but to serve, apparently. </p>
<p><em> Thing is</em>, Jon thinks, staring at his apartment ceiling, <em> I never really had a choice about ending up here. </em></p>
<p>(He’s had practice lying to himself. It’s why he’s still alive.)</p>
<p>
  <em> Click. </em>
</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>